The Home Team Advantage

I am immensely enjoying my visit to my parents' house. It feels like home, especially since Mom made it out of the hospital and Papa learned to chill the fuck out. They are both adorable. Papa bought Mom a headscarf from Urban Outfitters (although how he found his way in there, I have no idea), and she looks like a little babushka. Unapologetically warm and so. very. cute. She keeps insisting that she's a Senior Citizen, and it confounds me. At the same time, however, we're having rather contemporary and adult conversations. Embarrassingly so, at times. But this is not the place to summarize that.

We went out for drinks and pizza at a local pub. I excused myself to use the restroom, and while in the stall (the same one I'd always used in prior visits) finally wondered at why the toilet paper dispenser was at head-height on the left. And the graffiti is a bit... off, for a women's room. As it's slowly dawning on me that I may be urinating in the men's room, I hear a guy walk in and make a phlegm-clearing sound. Shit! Busted! I finish up, sneak out of the stall and look around. I don't see the guy, so I go to wash my hands. But, sure enough, there's some old dude at the urinal which is tucked in behind the door, with his back to the sink. Expediently, I hauled ass out of there and tried to avoid the looks from the people sitting nearby, which were making it blazingly obvious that everyone other than me knew it was the dude's room.

I go back to our table, rather embarrassed and tell Mom what happened. "Oh god, I accidentally went into the men's room and didn't realize. Which was fine, but then some dude came in!" She's all, "Oh, honey. It happens. This one time..." We were swapping inappropriate use of restroom stories when my dad walks up. And then I recognize the sweater. "Holy fuck! You were the guy at the urinal!" and he's all, "What? Oh crap! You were the asshole who didn't wash his hands!"

Not all Gloom and Doom

When I read too much news, I get inexplicably angry. Well, rather, I get explicably angry. And this week has been a dour week of Feministing, CNN and the NYTimes. All the seriousness is becoming detrimental to my social life at work, seeing as how the only lighthearted topic I've been able to come up with was George's study of 'How Many Licks Does It Take?'

And you can only bring up politics so much.

Except for ironic politics; those are fine.




So here's a reading list that isn't Wikipedia. Courtesy of G.

http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/
http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/
http://cabinet-of-wonders.blogspot.com/
http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/
http://www.word-detective.com/
http://www.indiebride.com/indieetiquette/blog.html
http://www.languagehat.com/
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/

The Sound Medical Alternative

No one really believes me when I say I use super-glue to close the occasional hard-to-bandage cut. But it's true! It works! That's what drove the invention of super-glue. Cyanoacrylate; the polymer solution that goes crazy as its solvent evaporates and the forming polymers wrap themselves around one another and anything nearby.

I heard it independently from a materials engineer, and Lynn/Dr. Mom, and thus took it as one of those common sense truths. And everyone thought I was weird... particularly that time I put my hand through a window. But lo! I have been vindicated by the NYTimes.

However, the NYTimes article is somewhat specious? Pedantic? Ill-informed? Super Glue for Wound Closure, which is some random article written by a midwife, is much more informative about super-glue, and includes a time-line and citations to the underlying chemistry. For example; the primarly difference between off-the-shelf super-glue and medical-grade tissue adhesive is the alcohol used in the solution. Also, medical-grade glue is bacteriostatic: although I'm not sure what compound they add to make it so.

Also, I'm surprised that anyone would recommend use of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) to remove the glue. It's an awesome solvent, but it also makes your skin highly permeable. As in, DMSO + lemon juice on hand = taste lemon levels of permeability. The more you know! Materials science and biochemistry are awesome.

Unscrewed

Tenant's Rights

I have the best clause in my Lease (well, the Addendum). This, or something like it, really should be part of the standard boilerplate lease for renters. Assuming it's legal and/or enforceable.

VI. If a Tenant engages in threatening behavior towards another Tenant/Resident, or places other Residents of the Building in personal danger or distress, then such will serve as grounds for terminating the Lease with respect to the threatening Tenant, with full penalties as permitted by law. Threatening behavior may include but is not limited to unwanted sexual advances, theft of belongings, violation of private space, verbal or written threats, violent actions or the threat of violence towards Residents of the Building.

Cross-Reference

Go read this on AlterNet. It's an excerpt from Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, by Robert Jensen.

Reproduced in part.

---

King of the Hill

The object of the children's game King of the Hill is to be the one who remains on top of the hill (or, if not an actual hill, a large pile of anything or the center of any designated area). To do that, one has to repel those who challenge the king's supremacy. The king has to push away all the other kids who charge the hill. That can be done in a friendly spirit with an understanding that a minimal amount of force will be used by all, or it can be violent and vicious, with both the king and the challengers allowed to use any means necessary. Games that start with such a friendly understanding can often turn violent and vicious. This scenario is also used in some video games, in which a player tries to control a specific area for a predetermined amount of time.

In my experience, both male and female children can, and did, play King of the Hill, but it was overwhelmingly a game of male children. It's one of the games that train male children to be men. No matter who is playing, it is a game of masculinity. King of the Hill reveals one essential characteristic of the dominant conception of masculinity: No one is ever safe, and everyone loses something.

Most obviously, this King-of-the-Hill masculinity is dangerous for women. It leads men to seek to control "their" women and define their own pleasure in that control, which leads to epidemic levels of rape and battery. But this view of masculinity is toxic for men as well.

One thing is immediately obvious about King-of-the-Hill masculinity: Not everyone can win. In fact, by definition in this conception of masculinity, there's only one real man at any given moment. In a system based on hierarchy, by definition there can be only one person at the top of the hierarchy. There's only one King of the Hill.

In this conception of masculinity, men are in constant struggle with each other for dominance. Every other man must in some way be subordinated to the king, but even the king can't feel too comfortable -- he has to be nervous about who is coming up that hill to get him. This isn't just a game, of course. A friend who once worked on Wall Street, one of the preeminent sites of masculine competition in the business world, described coming to work as like "walking into a knife fight when all the good spots along the wall were taken." Every day you faced the possibility of getting killed -- figuratively, in business terms -- and there was no spot you could stand where your back was covered. This is masculinity lived as endless competition and threat. Whatever the benefits of it, whatever power it gives one over others, it's also exhausting and, in the end, unfulfilling.

No one man created this system. Perhaps no man, if given a real choice, would choose it. But we live our lives in that system, and it deforms men, narrowing our emotional range and depth, and limiting our capacity to experience the rich connections with others -- not just with women and children, but with other men -- which require vulnerability but make life meaningful. The Man Who Would Be King is the Man Who Is Broken and Alone.

That toxic masculinity hurts men doesn't mean it's equally dangerous for men and women. As feminists have long pointed out, there's a big difference between women dealing with the constant threat of being raped, beaten, and killed by the men in their lives, and men not being able to cry. But we can see that the short-term material gains that men get in patriarchy -- the name for this system of male dominance -- are not adequate compensation for what we men give up in the long haul, which is to surrender part of our humanity to the project of dominance.

This doesn't mean, of course, that in this world all men have it easy. Other systems of dominance and oppression -- white supremacy, heterosexism, predatory corporate capitalism -- mean that non-white men, gay men, poor and working-class men suffer in various ways. A feminist analysis doesn't preclude us from understanding those problems but in fact helps us see them more clearly.

Deep Breath

A lot of what happens to women, as a class, makes me deeply and profoundly angry. Hell, it's what people do to other people that makes me angry. But why do women, as a class, take the brunt of it?

I've worked very hard to put myself in a place where I don't have to face harassment, discrimination or abuse on a daily or weekly basis. It basically meant putting myself in a significantly higher socio-economic bracket and more "elite" social class than the one I grew up in. All the way from the rural Midwest, to getting two college degrees and working at highly-admired corporation in a technically challenging field. I work with educated and reasonable people. My peers are students and idealist, young urban professionals with an excessive amount of moral fibre, mean income or free time. Choose two.

As I understand it, all I've done is trade overt discrimination and abuse for the covert and subtle variety. But, hey. That's not so bad. I live a life where I can trust my friends implicitly, they're good people. I'm so lucky. I get to revolve in a social sphere that has a higher standard for acceptable behavior. I have access to EC and abortion and health care and counseling services. But, um, last I checked, I was in the ivory-tower minority.

There is something extremely wrong with our society as a whole.

(RED)

I've seen two different (RED) things going around, and somehow I managed to conflate the two. The first is (PRODUCT)RED, which is a commercial venture/brand, by which, your purchases send money to help deal with AIDS in Africa. The second was just a national awareness day, on October 31st, to wear red and protest violence against women of color.

In my twisty little brain, I managed to somehow assume that by purchasing (RED) products, some of your money went to help women (colored or white) who were victims of sexual assault, violence and abuse.

I suppose it's not the strangest thing to confuse. (PRODUCT)RED gives diseased Africans anti-virals. I'm honestly unsure as to whether they also give them condoms, but if they don't, they absolutely should, so as to better treat both cause and effect. I once anecdotally heard that red condoms were, by far, the most popular in Africa -- but it doesn't change the fact that a lot of men don't use condoms. Women are looked down on for pressing to use them. Women are more likely to contract AIDS then men during sex, but they are far more highly penalized for having the disease. Even though there's been a redesign of the female condom, there's a lot of fear that it won't be highly adopted. Not only are women more likely to contract AIDS from sex, but if a woman pushes to use a female condom with her husband, it implies that she's been unfaithful (as opposed to protecting herself against her husband's extraneous engagements). So some women may not push for condoms at all. Not to mention, if you're raped, or taken advantage of, how can you insist that your attacker use a condom? Even in the USA, that can be interpreted to imply that you gave your consent.

I hate how all these things get glossed over. Fight AIDS in Africa, buy things. And no where is there a whisper about sex. Or irresponsibility. Or educating women, elevating their status, and changing cultural and sexual mores. For the love of Christ, there are men out there that think sex with a virgin will cure their HIV, so they rape infants. There are men that feel like invulnerable sex-gods, so they have unprotected sex, but beat their wives for wanting to use condoms. Women avoid prophylatic methods for protecting their children against HIV so that their husbands won't find out, because they're afraid for their lives. Black women are more likely to get HIV than white women, of course, women of color are more likely to be under-educated and stuck in backwards, controlling sub-cultures. The social psychology of sex and power is completely fucked.

And it's not just the 3rd world countries or poor blacks, or latinas, or minorities in urban centers, or the white-trash rural south. There's just this incredibly fucked up culture of silence about sexual abuse. I don't understand it. What the fuck is going on? Why? By the time I was 13, three of my close friends had been raped; two by their step-father, one by a farm-hand on her parents' ranch. By the time I was 18, that number more than doubled. It started including the ever-confusing acquaintance rape/date-rape. Girls are told it's not rape unless it's violent, there's enough ambiguity over consent vs violation vs bad idea that Cosmo created "gray rape." I've never been violently raped, but I've had (and for the most part, narrowly avoided) my own fucked up encounters. I mean... who hasn't? And isn't that the real kick in the teeth. Who hasn't?

Also, in all of these cases, from the incest to drunken not-so-consensual sex-- everyone knew, but no one said a God-damned thing. Maybe, sometimes, we wanted to pretend everything was okay, or we even felt like we or our friends had somehow deserved it/asked for it. A girl made a bed, so she had to sleep in it. And all these things go beyond middle-school or high-school hearsay. In fact, they just keep going. I now (peripherally) know women who have been assaulted in their own homes and been mistreated by the system when they tried to prosecute their rapists. They aren't just women you read about in the newspapers. God, it makes me scared of what I don't know about. And the older I get, the worse it gets, even here in enlightend New England with all the privileged kids and empowered, educated women. I'm 26 and I'm still learning how get over the Midwestern mores that good women 'act nice,' and are 'tolerant,' and are 'polite,' and learn to stand up to assholes who don't deserve the time of day. Yet, I'm also completely affronted when I find out one of my friends tolerates sexual harassment at work, or didn't punch some creep in the balls who deserved it.

I give money to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, but I never walk my ass down to the women's shelters and volunteer my time. I suppose it's because no matter how much I try to support people, I have no idea how to solve the root problem. Yet, I still get into a boiling rage every time I'm in a club and some asshole tries to stick his crotch in my face, or grind up against me without my permission, and then calls me a slut when I give him the cold shoulder. And I'm supposed to ignore those things -- let it wash over me -- pretend like it's a routine part of being an adult woman... but it's not. It shouldn't be. Why does the routine have to mean putting up with everything from being touched by uninvited persons, or having the man next to me on the bus masturbate while he looks at me? To having to deal with boyfriends who push for unprotected sex (maybe to prove you trust/love them, as opposed to having common sense), with the girl having to be the one to constantly say 'no.' To going out on dates with guys who inexplicably think it's okay to not be sexually screened in-between partners, who expect dinner and a movie to get them laid (and of course, being accused of leading them on when you consequently don't put out). To having to tolerate being called a "little lady," at work or in school when gender has nothing to do with your skills, to worrying about whether a friend will get promoted or fired because she's pregnant... and then to getting to hold a close friend while she cries hysterically because she's terrified of men after being sexually abused as a little kid. Even when I can rationalize each individual scenario away in my life or the lives of the women I know, the overwhelming prevalence of crap is to make me run screaming. Nothing in there should be part of a typical routine.

Rape victim cries every day and sleeps in clothes. I should not have first-hand experience enough to say, "Yeah, that sounds about right." In fact, I'm seeing red.

Intense Art

I liked some of the paper sculptures Phil took photos of in the Tokyu Hands Creative Life Store, so I went looking on the Internet for '3d paper sculptures'. And I found A4 Paper Cut by Danish artist, Peter Callesen.

Wedding Dress Without Bride, 2005


Man Made of Woman, 2005

The Lathe of Heaven

Once again, I love Ursula K. LeGuin.

The portal of God is non-existence.

Those whom heaven helps we call the sons of heaven. They do not learn this by learning. They do not work it by working. They do not reason it by using reason. To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven. -- Chuang Tse, XXIII

"Quiet as a thief in the night, a sense of well-being came into him, a certainty that things were all right, and that he was in the middle of things. Self is universe. He would not be allowed to be isolated, to be stranded. He was back where he belonged. He felt an equanimity, a perfect certainty as to where he was and where everything else was. This feeling did not come to him as blissful or mystical, but simply as normal. It was the way he generally had felt, except in times of crisis, of agony; it was the mood of his childhood and all the best and profoundest hours of his boyhood and maturity; it was his natural mode of being. These last years he had lost it, gradually but almost entirely, scarcely realizing that he had lost it. ... Now, all at once, he was back where he belonged."

Damn straight.

Happy Halloween

Pursuit of Happiness

Greg Brown is a great performer, and it helps that he's got an 8am whiskey voice, a no-nonsense sort of attitude and eyebrows like you feel like only the devil and Riad should have. Joe Price is an amazing and rather self-deprecating blues guitarist; his only vanity appeared to be his cowboy boots. And Vicki Price not only plays the steel guitar in excellent and stately rhythm, but she has a serious set of pipes on her. Those are three performers from Kansas/Iowa and parts flat and distant whom you feel have seen most if not all that this world has to offer.

I love how you can viscerally trust good musicians. Like Patti Smith and Neko Case and The Hold Steady.

So, then in the local scene, Eilen Jewell is a light, small, serious performer who's just really enjoyable to listen to. I only call her light because her musicality is impeccable, and her songs are well-written, and she's got a lot of good old country blues and folk-style songs... but I haven't heard a lot of her more personal music. Angry or sad, she's always so smooth. Which is why I'm excited about her new album, and a bit sad that I didn't wander over to Johnny D's after the Greg Brown show, because her first act was canceled, the cover was free on account of the Sox game, and she would have been setting up to play just as I walked in. But where I went, there was bluegrass, so I feel like it all came out alright.

Anje Duvekot is playful (and stunningly, multi-dimensionally attractive) and her songs are all over the place in tone and subject. She writes what she thinks, she's friendly, and her live performances are better than anything I've heard from her that was produced and recorded.. but it's hard to polish a performance for a recording and add accompanying artists without losing some of the original dimension. I've never heard a better cover of, "Your Famous Blue Raincoat."

I love living in this city. It's so nice when you go to a show, because you/the crowd feeds back to the performer. You and your friends, you're all there together. And you're so close to home. So, then you can go to someone's house and break out the guitar, because the only thing better than listening to music is making it. So, I'm glad I'm here. I'd feel so lost if all I had was a condominium, a Leonard Cohen anthology and the radio to keep my heart warm.

And it makes me even happier becase I'd never have started to appreciate live music and good music and different styles of music if it wasn't for my friends.

Now, get out there and go support your Musician's Local 405.

End of an Era

I've only been minimally following traffic on a few mailing lists, but apparently, MIT is doing away with the 6.00X course structure for introductory courses, including 6.001 -- Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programming (in scheme). Is this the last year for the traditional double-ohs? IF (TRUE) THEN it's time to whip out the, 'My other CAR is my CDR' bumper sticker and Knights of the Lambda Calculus buttons and pocket protectors.

"Relive the glory days of .001, or experience them for the first time before the end of an era.

Be a cons cell! Velcro yourself to your friends to make a box-and-pointer diagram! Wear your favorite lambda expression!

October 30th, 6.001 lecture, featuring the illustrious, adorable, and ever-quotable Gerald J. Sussman: Tuesday, 10am, 32-123. Costumes encouraged."

Team Olive

TeamOlive: A MMX Story.
By roman.

Expressionless

Ice wine and Belgian beer sit, warming themselves, slowly eking out a meager thermodynamically-challenged existence. Interminable. As time goes on, these pretty presents of an ephemeral/ephemeric celebration feel themselves decaying, decrying, with each passing moment becoming less the delicious beverages that they once were. I find myself perversely sympathetic to their degradation. They inspire me.

Biochemically powered, enzymatically enabled, driven by a desperate need for self-destination, I leap forth! In comparison! But to do what? To think and to do and, inevitably, to be the expressed and expressionless. To exist. To act, and irrationally, to justify. To prove to myself that I am autonomous while driven. I am a product of post-destination, a place where you follow from whence you came, sighing and satisfied with walking down the sidewalk and seeing roses, Queen Anne's lace and purple strawflowers, smelling the end of September while listening to the tiny drifts of yellow leaves crunch beneath wandering feet. I love these flowers because my mother grew them. I am happiest in the season in which I was born. And I will not believe you if you tell me this, even as I make my own inevitable way. I am a Calvin-compensated self-activating force majeur.

My day has inspired me: somewhere, I lost a touch of stomach flu; I opened gifts; I joined a gym; I made plans to see my Mother; I lipped rice paper and tofu; sketched a bike; pulled weeds and wanted to write but had nothing to say. Giovanni brought me Kazuo Ishiguro to remind and delight me as I discover that I still remember French. I find my verbal gesticulations cause my roommate to giggle; her laughter is pleasant. I can't make anything coherent from these observations, yet. But I am their master. I will wait, consuming, collecting, controlled, collected, composed, composing and patient.

And still the beer is sitting, STILL IS SITTING, ever warming, ever still, as it waits upon the countertop, expressionlessly anticipating a destiny that is yet to be fulfilled.

Best of Craigslist

Harvard Male, seeking Companion.

My final club has a reunion this fall, and my relationship of two years ended disastrously earlier this summer. I have an invitation for myself plus one, and am willing to show you a great time. It is a private party, in an extremely classy setting. There is no real way to describe how ornate the club is, but I guarantee that it will be the most upscale experience of your life. Think back to your high school prom, take away the terrible music, and multiply the experience by ten.

You must be white, 5'6" - 5'9", young, blonde, attractive, and intelligent. You must be in school, preferably Tufts or Wellesley but BU and BC are acceptable (definitely not MIT).

You should be able to hold a conversation, know when to be quiet, and polite in all your behavior. I have seen unruly guests embarrass members before, and I hope this won't be a problem. This event is black-tie, and I am willing to procure an evening gown for you.

I hate to sound so harsh, but I have expectations to live up to. No Black, Asian, overweight, or unattractive women please. Ages 18-22 only.

Picture required. craigslist hosted images

Location: Cambridge
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 424875291
http://boston.craigslit.org/bgs/m4w/424875291.html

Dem Bones

I have to submit to a 'hostile' and potentially 'invasive' medical examination on Thursday. So, I went and got my X-rays.

Day 5:



Day: 27... with bra!



Day: 39

Return from Eden

I just got back from an exceptionally relaxing trip to the Lake. But, before the break came life, and life is full of lessons.

Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.

On Friday, I ran into two young boys who were part of a magazine crew, selling magazine subscriptions to earn cash incentives to pay for college, a business or vocational school. So they said; so it goes. I talked to them for 20 minutes before I bought their magazines, trying to get a feel for the truth of their situation. When they left and I had 5 minutes to think (and as the afternoon percocet started wearing off), I realised they were half-lying to me and that I had just helped fund the organization that was exploiting them. My level of concern surprised me. It took me a day to console myself with finding out whether their employer is one of the better companies; I felt so angry and helpless. Before they left, Shane had asked me to write him a comment, so he could read it and be cheered up the next time someone answered their doorbell only to yell at him. I, the shamefully flippant academic, quoted Margaret Atwood and wrote, "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum." I spelt some of the words wrong and babbled like an ass that I didn't know Latin, but told them it was a motto, like Semper Fi for the Marines, and what it meant. I hoped Shane would understand and I still wish I had done more. But in the end, it's what he had asked for; a reminder that you can't let the bastards grind you down.

Of course, the specific bastard depends on your perspective.

I called around to reporters who have been covering exploitative magazine crews - the most recent expert reassured me that this crew wasn't on his list of most abusive. In fact, it didn't make his list at all. So, at a minimum, there's that.

From Feministing

Let's see if cross-posting some video from the Feministing blog works. This is pretty solidly fucking awesome. It's from the 2006 International World Poetry Slam Finals and by Sonya "The Drama" Boom Renee.

Catalog of Boredom

I finally watched Easy Rider.

Jack Nicholson delivers a lucidly written commentary on the inability of "our antiquated systems" to accept the shock of a Venusian society without leaders, where all are provided for in health, food and transportation; equally. And the next evening, after a nasty encounter with some local yokels, he explains to Dennis Hopper's character that one problem with our country is how those who are free in name but not in reality fear true individual freedom, and respond with indolence and violence. In this instance, two men who tear-ass around the country on motorcycles, flaunting established behavior threatens the communal illusion of freedom; an illusion men will kill to defend.

Cut to the three sleeping men being beaten by the local rednecks. JN is beaten to death. At DH's persuation, the remaining two roll JN's corpse for money and continue on to debauchery and Mardi Gras. Peter Fonda's character regrets this decision, but lets himself be pushed into it. He might be a man of integrity with no direction. The movie ends when two back-country locals decide to scare the two motorcyclists by menacing DH with a shotgun from their pickup truck. He-yuck. DH flips them off, which they take as probable cause to shoot him in the face. As PF rides for help, they shoot him as well and leave him and his bike as a fireball on the side of the country road. No wrongdoing. No sermon. No regret. Fin.

That's just the way it is.

What's the right word for the attitude where you can catalog someone in a different column from you and consequently or subsequently deny them any respect or human dignity. And you aren't even angry about it. You're just sporting, as is your God-given right. Is that indolence? Contempt? Marginalization? Disregard? And then what do you call it when you give someone different from you the right to exist, but not the right to exist in fullness; to be equal; to be accountable? What are the names for those gradations? 1. You are not human. 2. You are less human than I am. 3. We are equal.

You know what Orwell said about words/names and their corresponding ideas. That sort of _______ attitude is a contributing factor, if not basis of things like hate crimes, genocide, forced sterilizations, abortion bans, gay marriage bans, enforced poverty and rape. So what's the word?

Post-Op

I have survived my surgery. One general anesthetic, two incisions, and one titanium screw later, my clavicle is essentially back in once piece. Hooray for oxycodone.

Contents Fragile

I just got hit by a car (well, a few hours ago). I was on my bicycle and then I came off of it. Now I have a broken left clavicle.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903

Budding Feminism

I'm almost done stripping 7 layers of paint off of 450 square feet of 100-year old pine floor using nothing less poisonous than methylene chloride gel. The contractor comes in on Tuesday to sand/stain/refinish.

I also tweezed my eyebrows.

The girls of our yet-unnamed household painted our livingroom "India Ocean" green yesterday. We also planned out where we're going to set up our soldering iron and oscilloscope.

That's feminism, right fucking there.

EDIT: The contractor came, and conquered.

Project Vanity

When I say 'trivialities,' boy howdy, do I mean that. 


I've already mentioned that my hairdresser is awesome. And that it's a total trip to go to her. Well, she's awesome enough that I let her give me an asymmetric haircut with bangs. Behold!


Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:



I'm not sure how I feel about having a haircut that requires some daily styling, but it feels perfect for summer. If you like this (or any of my previous cuts), go see Kio at the Hair Collage next to the 1369 in Central. DO NOT go to Omni Hair. If Michelle's site hadn't been h4x0red, you could find the photos of the time she shaved her head because she accidentally went to Omni Hair and it was better to be bald after they were done with her. Kio's cuts are about the same cost as Judy Jetson's, but she'll start you out moderate and move you on to funky. And she absolutely refuses to give you a haircut that doesn't match your face, while still doing what you want. I realised as she was cutting it, that she gave me the mirror image of the last haircut I gave E. But E's a sweetie, so who am I to argue?


"Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery."


EDIT:

Holy crap. I have anime bed-head. Time to dye my hair blue and pretend I like guys with tentacles and school-girl fetishes so they'll buy me bio-modifications and mecha.





Don't forget, today is Father's day. Assuming you weren't conceived through parthenogenesis.

Circumstantial Harshness

I went looking through zephyr logs to find the name of the flooring contractor that Brambleberry recommended to me. I was scanning through all the files because I always forget Brambleberry's username. And then I found this:

~/ZLOG/personal-your complete inability to deal is nothing new.

Harsh.

Space is the Place

A new hope for the human race.



Seriously. I heartily recommend you check out The Phenomenauts.

If the glasses and theramin aren't enough to snare you, Professor Greg Arius is sporting tatoos under his immaculate space-age lab coat and Commander Angel Nova's got the smallest soul patch, sharpest mutton chops and darkest mascara of any rocker. Science and Honor! It's like Devo became explicable.

Delightful Expunging

It tickles the toungue with exuberant excitement! 1975, it was a hot summer and the extruded pipe and wooden slats filled her to tears on the point of gasping. Outrage! Holy rusted metal, Batman! Jesus was a carpenter, could he use BNC cables to splice near field detector arrays? It was all stacked in the hallway, piled haphazardly on top of the defuct and rattling radiator while the external airconditioner deafened passersby.

MITERS; MIT Museum; N52-115

Monitors; manuals; slide projector; aluminum rudder; pipe; slats; boards; ribbon cables; wall warts; piano wire; bnc cables; computer and av cables; lacrosse sticks; oars; joysticks; belt sander; enclosures; keyboards; despair.

(for tim anderson)

In Dreams

I'm trying to remember how I came to be shepherding two small girls around my home town that was strangely urban and really quite like a warzone. I took the littlest one into a dress shop (her father had said she wanted a dress) and encouraged her to try on something monstrously huge and ridiculous (it towered over her like a cypress) and destroy the prissy dress store. We ran away giggling. I woke up in our Japanese hotel, and had to run out into the street in my tabi. The doorman was horrified and polite about keeping up with my mad dashes to let me in and out. But then I found myself bare-ass naked on Norfolk Street and I had to run all the way to CVS (through the Cambridge Festival), arms across my breasts, to go into the CVS/SEARS and buy underwear. Strangely enough, no one noticed. Although I had a hard time turning my impromptu grab of clothes into something fashionable. Last night, I was laying in my bunkbed in a much nicer version of my childhood house, and friends came in and out, because it was the dorm. I'd borrowed Laura's guitar, or was it her laptop, and kept playing this pervasive piece in D-Dorian, like I was playing along to an unsung symphony. But then my time was up, and it was time to go, and I was in a car with a fat, loud, abusive, brutish police officer (the fuckup from Super Troopers meets Gomer Pyle from Full Metal Jacket). He shot a kitten, and wanted to track it down to make sure it stayed dead. He was a yellow and black tabby, like a tiger, and I knew him. And if I could find him, I'd put him in my shirt to dry him off and keep him warm, and he'd purr and we'd both be comforted. So, I tried to thwart the epic pile of loud, smelly, cantakerous, idiotic jackass. I kept pushing him away so we could hear where the injured mewling was coming from over the grinding sounds of his pant legs brushing together, his belt jingling, and the lip-smacking, snorting, constant stream of invective and mouth-breathing. Did I hear the kitten there? A grate? That side street? That building? And in the course of our searching noticed a strange subterranean party at the Hilton, under the grates, and eventually fell into a totally different world. Where the mission was a scavenger hunt, the kitten/person was an old friend. Why he was a cat, I forget. But I lost the fat man early on.

In the sewer world, it was actually a horrible mix of fairy tales and labyrinth. It was triangular. A faerie park in the center. Different quadrants (tridents) stretching out to new and unknown horrors. I was calling into a meta-help line to find out where I was to try to track down Ben. A woman was with me. We were cold and terrified because it was winter on our side-street and we were pretty sure that the nearest labyrinthine entrance led to darkness and Hell and outer-rim like unfortunate mind-numbing terror. We got ahold of a different operator, who told us to turn right and force our way through the snow along the lamps until we came to the University. Which we did. But we found the Debate Club instead, unfurling banners on a bridge across a small river (it was spring, now) arguing about electronic rights and security policies and the involvement of the government. I think. But they promised the University was just down the way. And lo, it was like a breakroom/convenience store (I noticed a pile of MIT yearbooks on the floor). I greedily drank milk-tea and tried to shove down as many pastries as possible. And wanted to fill my pack with everything. My companion complained that she didn't like stale or sugary food, and I had to wonder what we were going to run into and whether it wasn't better to eat while we still could.

And then I was standing on the side of a wooded road near dusk as Joe and Lenny carried a box of long, violet, mylar confetti strings (to make anodization, anodize what?) to the other side and threw in a catalyst. Everything started to pop and spark and as it floated over toward us, it burned. Twinkies started painstakingly gathering up the pieces. The other Laura cackled about her purple glittery laptop. Now the anodization material was in a truck bed floating in the river next to the road. I went over to see what I could find, and there were some beautifully metallic and vibrant roses, petals and bands of silk in the bed, and some of the glitter that was the goal. I took a piece of the fabric, admired how it was magenta at one end and all the spectrum of colors through gray along the length and wound it about my hair, like a cap. Girl with a Pearl Earring. I'm sure I looked ridiculous. And I wondered whatever happened to my kitten. And then I woke up.

The Loathing is Mutual

A closure is a data structure that holds an expression and an environment of variable bindings in which that expression is to be evaluated. The variables may be local or global. Closures are used to represent unevaluated expressions. Proper closure accounts for all the clues and mysteries, leaves no stray ends, makes themes clear, and gives readers a sense that order is again in sight. The ending of a lesson is critical. Because of its position at the end of a lesson, learning can be facilitated or hindered. "Closure" means different things to different people. For the purpose of this training resource, closure is defined as ending a lesson in a way that optimizes learning.


Closure is the false and futile wrap up after a quick drop and a sudden stop. It can't change the situation. For a few minutes, you get to say your piece and try to wrap up irrelevant and loose ends. For a while, it makes you feel better. But it's just more thing to mull over; It wasn't an apology; It wasn't reparation. It still leaves you frustrated. If it were possible to have a meaningful, mutually beneficial conversation, maybe you wouldn't be demanding closure in the first place.


What have I learned?

Adventures in Psychopharmacology

So, the story is that I kept on having lucid dreams/nightmares, who knows why -- maybe it's the 6 years of compiled sleep deprivation from MIT -- and it's turning me into a zombie, which is unfortunate given the requirements of my every day life. So, I went to my doctor. And he prescribed:

TRAZODONE

Wow. Trazodone. Thirty seconds with Google and you learn it's an ineffective anti-depressant kept around for its sedative side-effects. The hope of my doctor was that it would restore my sleep architecture so that I'd stop waking up during REM, forget my dreams, wake up rested, the whole deal. A miracle cure for weeks of unrest! Instead it knocked me out, regularly, for 10-14 hours and left me feeling distracted, dizzy and logey during the day. It also didn't really affect the vividness of my dreams. And I was characteristically perky and happy the two or three days I didn't take it.

Rather than helping my situation, the trazodone was ineffective and more than a little scary. What a waste of psychopharmacology.

Last night, I dreamt about a lone tribe of ninja turtles (evolving from the sand and puddles, building wells, aportioning land, egalitarianism shifting to nepotism) standing up to the new and improved society (tyrranous technologists from across the shore) who were trying to get the noble Donatello (now a tiny remnant of proto-turtle society) to sign some giant (literally) bill/confession that would be used by the improved turtle society to embezzle money from the Giant Space Empire. And the once-egalitarian society felt like '100 Years of Solitude', living in an incestuous house on the top of the hill, filled with murderous sister/cousins, secrets, and people that kept pet goldfish in clear pockets on their clothes and purses. At one point, there was an all-out war/murder spree. And for a little while, the society of green-wearing, goldfish-loving, swamp drudgers reset, only for me to see the seeds of destruction re-sown by a woman who'd drugged, seduced and been impregnated by her brother (my host) to induce murder. It had a similar feel to the dream where I cut together a video for class, and I had to build a spaceship and film myself going to the moon, alone, and dying... stop-animation and in-camera editing. It won awards after I transmitted it from space... but when I got back, no one believed it was me. When I woke up this morning, in a fugue of turtle power and cursing Jose Arcadio Buendia, I was distracted, tired, dizzy and disoriented.

Holy crap; am I not trying that again. Anyone want 1000mg of trazodone?

Personally, I feel the solution is never as easy as some magic pill.

Love is the Plan, The Plan is Death

As of late, all my strange and persistent experiences have been dreams. I dreamt one night that ancient old Paglia showed me how he/she kept a journal through the vast ages of her brilliant life. The secret wasn't to use one bound journal after another, but to re-bind the pages, removing and adding in worthwhile notes as one went. She bound hers in black leather and hooks made of corrugated paper and wire. Of course, you'd use a throw-away journal for your to-do lists. The bound edition was only for meaningful and sentimental things.

I also lucidly dreamt of playing in a band; eating agate and malachite; a serial-killer poisoning children with heroin, hashish resin, rage and blood; and nursing my criminally neglected pet cockateel back to health in time for Thanksgiving dinner (the squidball having already died). I love living in stories, but I've decided I'd rather have a normal sleep architecture than the opportunity to gaze narcissistically at the wonder that is my sub-conscious.

Now, if you'll excuse me, girls love robots.

W.T.F.

Hi Woz,

In case you don't recognize the email address, this is a Dude you sort of knew from Your Dorm five years ago. I keep meaning to call you about this, and I keep forgetting to do so. CalendarGirl gave me your email and phone number.

That guy who played bad techno above Desk, another guy you kind of remember, your old UROP advisor, some other dude you've never met, and I are throwing yet another guy's bachelor party this summer, probably on Fooday, June Bar. I was hoping I could get you to perform a strip-tease along with that girl from the Calendar and our other random girl friend for the party. I've spoken with the other two girls, and they seem excited about doing this.

I'll send more info as I get it, but here's the basic idea that we (The groomsmen) had for what we want you to do. We want a strip tease where your clothing is removed with wire strippers (I can supply them) and at the end of which the wire strippers end up in The Groom's pants. If possible, we'll have a server rack (Or possibly multiple racks) for one (Or all) of you to come out of at the start of the show. Think the classic cake thing, but with server racks. I'm not sure what level of nudity you will be comfortable with, but my 2 cents would be toplessness would be good, full nudity probably not necessary, but again, it's up to you since you are doing this. We can also find a way to compensate you for this, though I have no idea what you would want. Honestly, I'd be willing to find out how much a "professional" would cost and pay you, but that somehow doesn't seem quite right. We can figure that out later.

Another idea I had was to have you wearing these in the 403 variety at least at some point: link. I'll be happy to buy them and get them shipped here if you'll let me know what size you'll need.

Please let me know if you'd be up for this asap. If you have any questions about planning, please contact either me or the Calendar girl and we can discuss it. If you'd like to talk to me about it on the phone, you can either call my cell or my place of business. I hope to hear from you soon.

-Random Dude

Fashionista

Staying up until 2am generating AutoCad files makes me tired.

Every time I go and get my hair cut, the stylist blow-dries my hair and puts product in it. Plus or minus the birkenstocks and B.D.U.s, I invariably come out looking like Peppermint Patty. She always makes comments like, "Boy see your hair, they say, she so funky, go crazy. I know. I'm a funky lady, if they think you too funky, you no need them. You no need men like that. You have style. No one else can cut your hair." And then teases me about wanting my hair so short. She's really quite funny.

I wish I could get haircuts all the time.

In the News

By way of Feministing and CNN: A serial rapist targets men in Baytown, TX.

It's severly disappointing, even beyond the obvious problem of sexual predation. Here's why:

The U.S. Justice Department says one in 33 men in the United States has been a victim of a rape or attempted rape, compared with one in six women. Experts say men are far less likely to report a rape to authorities, because they fear being perceived as weak or see the attack as an assault on their masculinity.

In fact, investigators in Baytown fear there may be other victims of the rapist who are too ashamed to come forward.

"There's a lot of emotional damage that goes with being raped, especially when the victims are men," said Lynn Parrish, a spokeswoman for the National Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. But she added: "The best way to get this rapist off the street is for more people to come forward."

I support RAINN, but I don't see how anyone who's dealt with rape victims can even comment that rape is somehow especially more damaging to men. In any situation where a victim feels as though they will be perceived as weak or personally compromised, they will often be too ashamed to come forward regardless of their gender. When a man, particularly a heterosexual, is assaulted by a male attacker, that provides disambiguation of the act -- he would never willingly be on the "receiving end", therefore there is no question that he was raped. In comparison, how many instances of female sexual assault aren't even referred to as rape? How many cases are dismissed (in the court of public opinion, if not legally) as a situation where the girl was clearly asking for it? Is it somehow less worse for women because during consensual sex we would willingly be on the receiving end, or is it because more women are raped and somehow that ubiquity makes the act less terrible to endure? I would argue that the more abiguous the situation surrounding an assault, or the more closely it parodies an act that you might otherwise be able to enjoy, then the more damaging the experience and the more difficult it is to report. But no matter who you are, how old you are, or what gender your attacker was, rape is emotionally damaging, and you should be able to come forward without being perceived as weak, un-masculine, whorish or what-have-you.

A victim is a victim -- straight up.